Without Wisdom

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Anaxas' main trade port; it is also the nation's criminal headquarters, home to the Bad Brothers and Silas Hawke, King of the Underworld. The small town of Plugit is nearby.

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Leander
Posts: 122
Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2018 1:21 pm
Topics: 16
Race: Passive
Location: Old Rose Harbour
Character Sheet: Character Sheet
Plot Notes: Plot Notes
Writer: Dizzy
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Sun Dec 16, 2018 3:48 pm

9th Dentis, 2718
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To say that Leander Aguilar was a worldly man would be a gargantuan understatement. Intelligent but carrying no wisdom, he held himself as a man who knew of all things, but in truth his experiences had been so narrow that spending enough time with him would cause anyone to see the truth. Like all passives, however, he knew enough about one thing.

The function of racism is to dehumanise, destabilise and antagonise, to cast the victim in a light whereby they deserve the maltreatment. It is always a harbinger of cruelty and callous behaviour. It is the permission slip the darker side of people’s minds needs to take over their behaviour, suppressing any emerging empathy. Should there be any power or greed motivation to maintain the racism, then it becomes culturally reinforced and defended. Rare, induced or orchestrated occurrences of violence in the victimised population generate fear and the problem becomes entrenched for generations.

Leander has never understood this as a child - what child would anyway, but a child of galdori parents had no hope of even considering that his world was ruled by xenophobic beliefs. Abandoned in Old Rose, torn away from a life of privilege, the boy had been introduced to the underside of the coin in probably the kindest way his mother could conceive.

But the opportunity to continue to thrive - albeit in a lesser way that his mother could have provided - had been lost on Leo eight years ago, when anger bubbled to the surface, left to fester until it morphed into rage and bitterness. It was something he still clung tightly to, like armour, protecting him from the world.

I hear you’ve caught the attention of Hawke.” The quill tip paused over the parchment, bleeding ink into the dry leaves. The boy glanced up to see Resha leaning against the door frame, arms crossed against his chest. Leo rolled his eyes and placed down his quill. He didn’t know why: the pair fought more and more frequently now, and each argument only seemed to help Leo find more and more creative excuses as to why working on his projects was as essential to him as breathing the air in the atmosphere. But one look at Resha told him to capitulate, so he leaned back in his chair.

The thing was... if Silas Hawke was the sun of Old Rose Harbour, the source around which the City, then Resha Farrow, owner of the Attic, was like the proverbial black hole that circled said sun. Nothing got past him. He absorbed everything, but it was rare that any information came back out... it was probably why he was so neatly under Hawke’s thumb. “What of it?” The tone was more impetuous than Leander had intended, but he didn’t like the judgemental way in which Resha was watching him.

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User avatar
Leander
Posts: 122
Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2018 1:21 pm
Topics: 16
Race: Passive
Location: Old Rose Harbour
Character Sheet: Character Sheet
Plot Notes: Plot Notes
Writer: Dizzy
Post Templates: Post Templates
Contact:

Sun Dec 16, 2018 3:50 pm

9th Dentis, 2718
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The bookshop owner’s lips curled upwards, “You’ve made quite the impression, little lion. Not only did you attempt to scam your way to a little extra coin in front of the King, but you attacked the Bad Brothers while doing so.

I didn’t-!

Quiet, Leander. I know as everyone else in that room that no one could have foreseen your little... episode, nor stopped it even if they had known. Ten Gods, I began to think your mother had been wrong, nine years of this unassuming little boy sulking in my domain... causing damage only when his emotions get the better of him.” Leo cringed as the memories of his temper surfaced. “But you were mundane, hardly the risk I thought I was taking when I allowed you to live with me. And within an hour of meeting Hawke, your nature is revealed for the first time. I wonder if I should be offended?

Though judging from what I’ve been told, perhaps I was lucky to have missed it.” The apprentice scowled and muttered something about showing Resha before long if he wasn’t careful. The master forger chortled, arms loosening to clutch his rounded belly. “Spare me, Leander. You have no goods to back up that big talk. Now, simmer down. I’m not here to berate you - though I would like to know what demon possessed you to think it was a good idea to cheat the Bad Brothers, risking my good name in the process.

Leo at least had the grace to look guilty, casting his gaze downwards as he fiddled with the hem of his shirt. “I didn’t think Silas Hawke would be there.

And you think that makes it okay? Circle protect you, the problem with you is that you are not circumspect, Leander. Do you know what circumspect means?” Leander scrunched his face up, thoroughly insulted at even the idea that he wouldn’t know the meaning of the word. “Forging documents whilst under the influence of whatever diversion you have recently discovered and then trying to blag your way through a game whilst still intoxicated is the opposite of a circumspect operation. If you couldn’t before, can you venture a guess as to what the word means now? Now, the only reason, and I mean the only reason, you are not currently floating in a croc’s stomach with a very surprised look on your face is that Hawke has taken an interest in you.

The older man dragged a seat out to sit opposite Leo, falling into it with a loud exhale of breath as he rubbed at his temple. “Though for the life of me, I cannot see why.” Leander, for his part, had remained silent through Resha’s speech. Resha has only added the last bit to try to get a rise out of his insolent ward. It did nothing, which surprised and - dare he admit it - concerned him. He scrutinised the boy opposite him, noting that Leo had suddenly learnt how to maintain an indecipherable expression as he stared back. Sighing again, Resha broke the silence. “I know you, Leo.

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User avatar
Leander
Posts: 122
Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2018 1:21 pm
Topics: 16
Race: Passive
Location: Old Rose Harbour
Character Sheet: Character Sheet
Plot Notes: Plot Notes
Writer: Dizzy
Post Templates: Post Templates
Contact:

Sun Dec 16, 2018 3:56 pm

9th Dentis, 2718
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He watched the boy swallow, eyelids fluttering briefly before he regained control. “You pay your taxes to Hawke early and get your work done with neat efficiency. You don’t gossip, you are better suited to curling up in the back room with a dusty old book than in a tavern with an unpronounceable spirit in your hand. You carefully follow all the lines you’ve ever been told to walk. At least, that was the case last year.

Resha didn’t need to ask the question of his ward. The two knew each other well enough to understand and answer what wasn’t spoken. In truth, Resha had though he knew the boy well enough to know the answer without even having to ask. He was mistaken. He’d had apprentices before: boys who learnt the craft and left, some he saw again, others he never would. He remembered their names, and strange, useless bits of information about them. But Resha had never been a collector of broken things, and taking in Leander Aguilar had never been part of his plan. Somehow the lost little lion had wormed his way into his mind, dominating his thoughts like he imagined fathers did with their own get.

I feel like I’m waiting for something that’s never going to happen.” The voice was small like he hadn’t heard from that mouth in years. There was something raw about it too - unusual given Leander’s unfounded belief that emotion somehow meant weakness. Not that Resha would panda to it. He raised a brow, “And you think substance abuse, women, gambling, you think these are all ways to make things happen?

It’s better that this drudgery,” he gestured to the large tome in front of him, which he had dutifully been restoring at the behest of his mentor. The man in question cast his eyes downwards, examining it with a quick, but expert, glance over it. The intricate illustrations around the opening letter was nigh perfect. There was little left to teach him, but it was clear Leander - who had once gone as far as to proclaim that he was destined to take Vienda by storm - was unfulfilled.

Ha! That display of yours was self-aggrandisement in the extreme, Leo! You are skilled in the craft, that much is undeniable. But your skill is only that which can be learnt by any other boy.” If Resha saw the flicker of hurt on his wayward ward’s face, it didn’t cause him any guilt. Sometimes you had to be cruel to be kind and, with Leander, that was definitely true. A boy who bit the hand of every man who fed him, the abandoned passive was too blind in his bitterness. “For all your intelligence and education, you have never set your mind to the task. You think you’re better than this life so you never try, and if you never try, you will never succeed.

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